Extracting data question

[viviosoft]

Hello all,

 

I have a problem I'm not sure how to tackle.  I have data in a database that looks looks like this:

 

Field1  |    Field2

AA        |    AA Row 1 Data

AA        |    AA Row 2 Data 

AA        |    AA Row 3 Data 

AB        |    AB Row 4 Data

AB        |    AB Row 5 Data

AB        |    AB Row 6 Data

AC        |    AB Row 7 Data

AC        |    AB Row 8 Data

AC        |    AB Row 9 Data

AC        |    AB Row 10 Data

 

I would like to grab and output JUST the first AA, AB, AC  and the the row data in field two?  So the loop would catch the first AA then when field1 data has changed it will output the first AB and so on... 

 

So the output would look like:

 

Row1:  AA : AA Row 1 Data

Row2:  AB : AA Row 4 Data

Row3:  AC : AA Row 7 Data

 

Is there a way to accomplish this?  Any help would be great!

 

Thanks!

[Jnerocorp]

//make sure to connect to the database first
//this code should do exactly what you want

$result = mysql_query("SELECT `field1`, FIRST(`field2`) FROM `table` GROUP BY `field1`") 
or die(mysql_error());  
$i = 0;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array( $result )) {

echo "Row".$i++.": ".$row['field1']." : ".$row['field2']."<br>";

} 

 

[nethnet]

Your SQL should look something like this:

 

SELECT `field1`, FIRST(`field2`) FROM `table` GROUP BY `field1`

 

This is untested, but should work.

[nethnet]

@Jnerocorp,

 

I don't believe he wants to print all records of the database.  And using a PHP workaround to achieve what he wants is rather counterproductive, since the query will still select the entire table, which poses performance issues.

 

The solution is in the SQL in this case.

[viviosoft]

Thanks nethnet!  That's what I needed.  I knew there was a way to handle this.  Maybe this should be moved to SQL Help?  Thanks again.